Peggy Polias

Dr Peggy Polias (she/her) is a composer, music engraver, arts administrator and casual academic residing and working on Darug and Eora lands in Sydney. She graduated with a Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney in 2022. Her creative research under the supervision of Professor Liza Lim has focused on themes of safety, secrecy, and journaling in sound and in the creative process. Polias was part of the Conservatorium’s Composing Women program of four participants in 2018-19. Polias has moved in and out of academic and art music industry settings in a busy portfolio career, working directly for composers such as Peter Sculthorpe (music assistant, 2005-14), and in arts and publishing organisations (eg Australian Music Centre 2009-13; Wildbird Music, 2011 onwards).

As a composer, Polias has had works performed or recorded by artists including Claire Chase (USA), Bernadette Harvey, The Nano Symphony, Lamorna Nightingale, The Riot Ensemble (UK), Sydney Chamber Opera, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Her digital albums Picnic at Hanging Rock Suite (2009) and Hive (2016) were released by Kammerklang in 2015-16 and were completed as part of the inaugural Peter Sculthorpe Music Fellowship awarded to Polias by Create NSW in 2015. Recent works include Receptor (2020) for solo marimba, composed especially for Claire Edwardes and an orchestral work, Arachne (2023), for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s 50 Fanfares project, which received its premiere in August 2023. Polias is an Associate Represented Artist with the Australian Music Centre and takes a keen interest in the possibilities for music in the online space.

Biography taken from composer’s website.